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This is how it is. We rented the room and it had four walls. I counted them and counted them. And four was what I got. But the answer was six. I don't make mistakes like forgetting the ceiling and floor, but I did. My only excuse is that my eyesight was poor that day for very good reasons. On the morning in question, I drove my dog to a nearby hospital. The day was going to be sunny and I remember thinking to myself, "Well, today it won't rain." I wasn't wrong about that. The dog I had was a brown, earthy color, and it was shaggy and cute. I am telling you this because it gives detail and makes my story sound more interesting.
I drove the dog into the emergency room. They actually let you do that now. It's for cases of extreme emergency. They installed a ramp from the road that goes straight into the hospital, right into the operating rooms. You can even get a car now with a button inside that immediately flips the car inside out so that the doctors can get working on you right away. They no longer need to put you on gurneys and wheel you around. It's nice. But I didn't need that kind of special attention on that day. I drove in and parked at the front desk. My dog jumped out and began running up and down the hallways, hollering no doubt for additional food. I had checked beforehand and this was okay with the nurses, but I would find out later that no one ever fed the dog, and this irritated me. I watched my dog for a while and then I announced myself to the man behind the desk. He directed me to a clergyman in an office accessible through a trap-door in the waiting room. The clergyman was a deep shade of green and had flecks of yellow in it. He was hairless and smelled like onion. Not wanting to appear rude, I did not pinch close my nostrils. I pretended I was in a kitchen and not a hospital. This helped. The clergyman explained that he would have otherwise said his name but it was in Chinese. I told him that was okay and got right down to business. I produced from my knapsack a set of envelopes encased entirely in red wax. They had fallen some months before into a vat of wax and accidentally got encased. There was little I could do. The clergyman accepted the letters and began to scrape at the wax surface with a penny. I was grateful that he didn't ask questions. I always try to avoid embarrassment whenever possible. I think people should help each other out with this. The clergyman had the right idea by not asking me, and maybe that's why he was a clergyman. After about fifteen minutes of scraping, the envelopes were freed and ripped open, the letters inside unfolded. I started reciting their contents but the clergyman shushed me with a raised finger. He silently read the letters one-by-one. When he was finished, he dropped them onto the ground and looked at them there for a moment. Then he lifted his head and stared at me. His eyes were very much like a bird's. He said, "I don't know you, and I don't know why you've brought these letters, but I'm going to help you." He reached into the drawer of a cabinet and grabbed a handful of leaflets. "Distribute these to your neighborhood." I took them and climbed back into the waiting room. I collected my dog and started up my car. I drove to an abandoned alleyway and wept. All the crying made my eyes feel very sour. I couldn't see as well as I should have. When it was time to count the walls, I made my miscalculation. As a result, I am now unable to see the ground or the sky. Let me tell you of the contents of the clergyman's leaflet. I will transcribe the opening. Attention all you children that play in the streets during the days and nights. There are cars that drive on the streets and other children and your parents and pets. I am not caring for their attentions, only those players of child age that make the streets their grounds. Open up this book and stare at what I am hoping you will pay close attention to. Then at the bottom it is signed, "Sincerely, " and then under it is a word in Chinese, presumably the clergyman's name. Inside the leaflet are various diagrams showing the location of gold mines on an island somewhere. There are lines going to and from the island to other places not listed. A dotted line is drawn going straight down from the center of the island. I can't tell if it means to go to the center of the earth or somewhere still above the land. From what I can figure out, there is a volcano on the island, and a stream, and a line of towers. Each tower is drawn such that it looks like the Eiffel Tower. I have compared the island's shape to other land masses in all of my atlases and there is no match. This is a fictitious island. The clergyman is trying to get children to believe in it. Also in the leaflet are lists of famous people that live on the island as well as the goods they intend to sell at "reasonable prices". Prices are even included for the famous people themselves. Self-slavery? I have never heard of this. Children should not be buying famous people. On one page is a story of a boy and a girl, siblings, who visit the island and find a gold mine. They encounter a witch and a knight, as well as a man made of sticks. There is a king who orders the boy and girl to mow the grass that grows on every inch of the island, but they refuse. Later, the king is revealed to be the jester of the real king. But even the real king is a fraud, a puppet of the witch. The boy and the girl get pushed down a well and end up back in their parents' bedroom, where they are not allowed to be. They learn invisibility from the witch and hide in the closet. They use their gold to hire the knight to stand guard at the door. They never see their parents but they do think they hear them through the walls. At the end of the story, the following is written in bold: "The moral of the story is: Make up your own moral." Also included in the leaflet is an address and an invitation to visit. This morning I went to the neighborhood and I did what the clergyman said. I watched the people take the leaflets and continue on with their day. Some are going to work and some are going to to school. Some to the park, and some to the store. And some are going to the streets to play. I wonder how many of those that are children will go to the clergyman's address, knock on the door like it says in the leaflet, and get invited in. I wonder how many are now in the hospital. |